The White Company
blood-stained sailors turned from the strife to the ropes and back. Now
the cog's head was turned Francewards, and the shipman walked the deck,
a peaceful master-mariner once more.
“There is sad scath done to the cog, Sir Nigel,” said he. “Here is a
hole in the side two ells across, the sail split through the centre,
and the wood as bare as a friar's poll. In good sooth, I know not what I
shall say to Master Witherton when I see the Itchen once more.”
“By St. Paul! it would be a very sorry thing if we suffered you to be
the worse of this day's work,” said Sir Nigel. “You shall take these
galleys back with you, and Master Witherton may sell them. Then from the
moneys he shall take as much as may make good the damage, and the rest
he shall keep until our home-coming, when every man shall have his
share. An image of silver fifteen inches high I have vowed to the
Virgin, to be placed in her chapel within the Priory, for that she was
pleased to allow me to come upon this Spade-beard, who seemed to me from
what I have seen of him to be a very sprightly and valiant gentleman.
But how fares it with you, Edricson?”
“It is nothing, my fair lord,” said Alleyne, who had now loosened his
bassinet, which was cracked across by the Norman's blow. Even as he
spoke, however, his head swirled round, and he fell to the deck with the
blood gushing from his nose and mouth.
“He will come to anon,” said the knight, stooping over him and passing
his fingers through his hair. “I have lost one very valiant and gentle
squire this day. I can ill afford to lose another. How many men have
fallen?”
“I have pricked off the tally,” said Aylward, who had come aboard with
his lord. “There are seven of the Winchester men, eleven seamen, your
squire, young Master Terlake, and nine archers.”
“And of the others?”
“They are all dead--save only the Norman knight who stands behind you.
What would you that we should do with him?”
“He must hang on his own yard,” said Sir Nigel. “It was my vow and must
be done.”
The pirate leader had stood by the bulwarks, a cord round his arms,
and two stout archers on either side. At Sir Nigel's words he started
violently, and his swarthy features blanched to a livid gray.
“How, Sir Knight?” he cried in broken English. “Que dites vous? To hang,
le mort du chien! To hang!”
“It is my vow,” said Sir Nigel shortly. “From what I hear, you thought
little enough of hanging others.”
“Peasants, base roturiers,” cried the other. “It is their fitting death.
Mais Le Seigneur d'Andelys, avec le sang des rois dans ses veins! C'est
incroyable!”
Sir Nigel turned upon his heel, while two seamen cast a noose over the
pirate's neck. At the touch of the cord he snapped the bonds which bound
him, dashed one of the archers to the deck, and seizing the other round
the waist sprang with him into the sea.
“By my hilt, he is gone!” cried Aylward, rushing to the side. “They have
sunk together like a stone.”
“I am right glad of it,” answered Sir Nigel; “for though it was against
my vow to loose him, I deem that he has carried himself like a very
gentle and debonnaire cavalier.”
CHAPTER XVII. HOW THE YELLOW COG CROSSED THE BAR OF GIRONDE.
For two days the yellow cog ran swiftly before a northeasterly wind, and
on the dawn of the third the high land of Ushant lay like a mist upon
the shimmering sky-line. There came a plump of rain towards mid-day
and the breeze died down, but it freshened again before nightfall, and
Goodwin Hawtayne veered his sheet and held head for the south. Next
morning they had passed Belle Isle, and ran through the midst of a fleet
of transports returning from Guienne. Sir Nigel Loring and Sir Oliver
Buttesthorn at once hung their shields over the side, and displayed
their pennons as was the custom, noting with the keenest interest the
answering symbols which told the names of the cavaliers who had been
constrained by ill health or wounds to leave the prince at so critical a
time.
That evening a great dun-colored cloud banked up in the west, and an
anxious man was Goodwin Hawtayne, for a third part of his crew had been
slain, and half the remainder were aboard the galleys, so that, with
an injured ship, he was little fit to meet such a storm as sweeps over
those waters. All night it blew in short fitful puffs, heeling the great
cog over until the water curled over her lee bulwarks. As the wind still
freshened the yard was lowered half way down the mast in the morning.
Alleyne, wretchedly ill and weak, with his head still ringing from
the blow which he had received, crawled up upon deck. Water-swept and
aslant, it was preferable to the noisome, rat-haunted dungeons which
served as cabins. There, clinging to the stout halliards of the sheet,
he gazed with amazement at the long lines of black waves, each with
its curling ridge of foam, racing in endless succession from out the
inexhaustible west. A huge sombre cloud, flecked with livid blotches,
stretched over the whole seaward sky-line, with long ragged streamers
whirled out in front of it. Far behind them the two galleys labored
heavily, now sinking between the rollers until their yards were level
with the waves, and again shooting up with a reeling, scooping motion
until every spar and rope stood out hard against the sky. On the left
the low-lying land stretched in a dim haze, rising here and there into
a darker blur which marked the higher capes and headlands. The land
of France! Alleyne's eyes shone as he gazed upon it. The land of
France!--the very words sounded as the call of a bugle in the ears of
the youth of England. The land where their fathers had bled, the home of
chivalry and of knightly deeds, the country of gallant men, of courtly
women, of princely buildings, of the wise, the polished and the sainted.
There it lay, so still and gray beneath the drifting wrack--the home of
things noble and of things shameful--the theatre where a new name
might be made or an old one marred. From his bosom to his lips came the
crumpled veil, and he breathed a vow that if valor and goodwill could
raise him to his lady's side, then death alone should hold him back from
her. His thoughts were still in the woods of Minstead and the old armory
of Twynham Castle, when the hoarse voice of the master-shipman brought
them back once more to the Bay of Biscay.
“By my troth, young sir,” he said, “you are as long in the face as the
devil at a christening, and I cannot marvel at it, for I have sailed
these waters since I was as high as this whinyard, and yet I never saw
more sure promise of an evil night.”
“Nay, I had other things upon my mind,” the squire answered.
“And so has every man,” cried Hawtayne in an injured voice. “Let the
shipman see to it. It is the master-shipman's affair. Put it all upon
good Master Hawtayne! Never had I so much care since first I blew
trumpet and showed cartel at the west gate of Southampton.”
“What is amiss then?” asked Alleyne, for the man's words were as gusty
as the weather.
“Amiss, quotha? Here am I with but half my mariners, and a hole in the
ship where that twenty-devil stone struck us big enough to fit the fat
widow of Northam through. It is well enough on this tack, but I would
have you tell me what I am to do on the other. We are like to have
salt water upon us until we be found pickled like the herrings in an
Easterling's barrels.”
“What says Sir Nigel to it?”
“He is below pricking out the coat-armor of his mother's uncle. 'Pester
me not with such small matters!' was all that I could get from him. Then
there is Sir Oliver. 'Fry them in oil with a dressing of Gascony,' quoth
he, and then swore at me because I had not been the cook. 'Walawa,'
thought I, 'mad master, sober man'--so away forward to the archers.
Harrow and alas! but they were worse than the others.”
“Would they not help you then?”
“Nay, they sat tway and tway at a board, him that they call Aylward
and the great red-headed man who snapped the Norman's arm-bone, and the
black man from Norwich, and a score of others, rattling their dice in
an archer's gauntlet for want of a box. 'The ship can scarce last much
longer, my masters,' quoth I. 'That is your business, old swine's-head,'
cried the black galliard. 'Le diable t'emporte,' says Aylward. 'A five,
a four and the main,' shouted the big man, with a voice like the flap of
a sail. Hark to them now, young sir, and say if I speak not sooth.”
As he spoke, there sounded high above the shriek of the gale and the
straining of the timbers a gust of oaths with a roar of deep-chested
mirth from the gamblers in the forecastle.
“Can I be of avail?” asked Alleyne. “Say the word and the thing is done,
if two hands may do it.”
“Nay, nay, your head I can see is still totty, and i' faith little head
would you have, had your bassinet not stood your friend. All that may be
done is already carried out, for we have stuffed the gape with sails and
corded it without and within. Yet when we bale our bowline and veer the
sheet our lives will hang upon the breach remaining blocked. See how
yonder headland looms upon us through the mist! We must tack within
three arrow flights, or we may find a rock through our timbers. Now, St.
Christopher be praised! here is Sir Nigel, with whom I may confer.”
“I prythee that you will pardon me,” said the knight, clutching his way
along the bulwark. “I would not show lack of courtesy toward a worthy
man, but I was deep in a matter of some weight, concerning which,
Alleyne, I should be glad of your rede. It touches the question of
dimidiation or impalement in the coat of mine uncle, Sir John Leighton
of Shropshire, who took unto wife the widow of Sir Henry Oglander
of Nunwell. The case has been much debated by pursuivants and
kings-of-arms. But how is it with you, master shipman?”
“Ill enough, my fair lord. The cog must go about anon, and I know not
how we may keep the water out of her.”
“Go call Sir Oliver!” said Sir Nigel, and presently the portly knight
made his way all astraddle down the slippery deck.
“By my soul, master-shipman, this passes all patience!” he cried
wrathfully. “If this ship of yours must needs dance and skip like a
clown at a kermesse, then I pray you that you will put me into one
of these galeasses. I had but sat down to a flask of malvoisie and a
mortress of brawn, as is my use about this hour, when there comes a
cherking, and I find my wine over my legs and the flask in my lap, and
then as I stoop to clip it there comes another cursed cherk, and there
is a mortress of brawn stuck fast to the nape of my neck. At this moment
I have two pages coursing after it from side to side, like hounds behind
a leveret. Never did living pig gambol more lightly. But you have sent
for me, Sir Nigel?”
“I would fain have your rede, Sir Oliver, for Master Hawtayne hath fears
that when we veer there may come danger from the hole in our side.”
“Then do not veer,” quoth Sir Oliver hastily. “And now, fair sir, I must
hasten back to see how my rogues have fared with the brawn.”
“Nay, but this will scarce suffice,” cried the shipman. “If we do not
veer we will be upon the rocks within the hour.”
“Then veer,” said Sir Oliver. “There is my rede; and now, Sir Nigel, I
must crave----”
At this instant, however, a startled shout rang out from two seamen upon
the forecastle. “Rocks!” they yelled, stabbing into the air with their
forefingers. “Rocks beneath our very bows!” Through the belly of a great
black wave, not one hundred paces to the front of them, there thrust
forth a huge jagged mass of brown stone, which spouted spray as though
it were some crouching monster, while a dull menacing boom and roar
filled the air.
“Yare! yare!” screamed Goodwin Hawtayne, flinging himself upon the long